Peru 2003
Page 3
After returning from Cuzco, we spent a day or two in Lima to readjust, and then the three of us - Jim, Scarlet and I - flew to Iquitos, in the Amazon basin. The temperature was about 80 degrees when we got there, and while altitude was no longer an issue, humidity became a factor instead. Coming out of the airport, we were practically assaulted by taxi drivers begging us to use their service: fortunately, Jim recognized one of the guys as a driver from his last trip up here, for a motorcycle race in the winter. Jim and Scarlet took one taxi while I rode in another one with the guy's friend. By taxi, I must be clear: these are the three-wheeled, motorcycle-driven kind. Iquitos is inaccessible by land, so all travelers must come by boat or airplane. As a result, there are thousands of motorcycles all over, mostly 125s, and this makes for quite a noisy city. But it's kinda cool seeing everyone tooling around on a Honda Hero 125.
Of course, this type of transportation loses some of its charm when the rain comes down. We woke up on the second morning to a massive downpour, and it lasted almost until noon, thus hampering our prospects of seeing the Amazon and taking a boat ride into the jungle. Fortunately the rain stopped just before lunchtime, and we walked to the nearby Plaza de Armas for something quick. While there, the waiter told us that he had a friend who worked for one of the tour agencies, and that they could arrange for us to take a ride up the river and see some of the indian tribes, along with an animal farm. We decided to go with this option since it was late and the bus was getting ready to go anyway, and off we went.
For 45 minutes we sped from the Iquitos main harbor at Puerto Masusa up into the Rio Momon, one of the tributaries around here that feeds into the Amazon. The Amazon itself is huge, especially at this time of year since this is rainy season for the mountains from which the river receives its runoff. The Momon is at an elevated level also, but since it's a lesser tributary the water is a nice dark color, unlike the Amazon, which is a sort of brownish red (much like the Urubamba river on the way to Machu Picchu). We saw one other power boat on the river; the remaining traffic was paddled canoes, usually hauling fruit to the town market, or perhaps out on a fishing excursion.
Of course, I probably shouldn't mention that the waters here are infested with pirhanas; but I will. We might have had a small problem had the boat capsized, or had we crashed into the other power boat we saw, given the nature of pirhanas, but as it turned out there was nothing to worry about. They stayed in their water, and we stayed out of it. Not that the boat we were in was any weak craft; on the contrary, it was a good 24-ft covered powerboat with a sizeable outboard motor. But it's always fun to think of these exotic scenarios after the danger has passed.
Our first stop was at one of the jungle lodges, where guests can spend the evening out in the jungle for the added experience of hearing the sounds made by the insects and various nocturnal animals. We were given a small, traditional jungle lunch: fried fish, noodled hearts of palm, a deep-fried banana, rice, and papaya. While I ate, Jim took the liberty of feeding the birds (encouraged) a banana that was just waiting to be devoured. The two birds seen here are a blue-headed parrot and a blue macaw. We would see macaws throughout the day: any time there were congregations of humans, the macaws were there.
Of course, sometimes they would get a little obstinate. I don't know what Jim's saying to this one, but you can almost see the bird's ears perked up as if he's been insulted. It also just so happens that the picture shows the great contrast of the bird's plumage to Jim's white shirt. I couldn't have asked for a better pose to this shot, I think. In fact it's one of my favorites from the entire trip.
Our next stop was a visit to the Bobas tribe. Since they are close enough to Iquitos, they have become aware of the tourism industry and I guess an anthropologist would consider them a spoiled tribe, but since I was being a tourist, after all, I took pictures. They performed a dance for us, then made Scarlet and I join in with them. And wouldn't you know it, the second the dance was over, they were bombarding me with stuff to buy. Here I was feeling guilty for taking their picture (since half the women didn't wear tops), and the second they get a chance to fleece my wallet they go right ahead. So I bought a few things here and there, but did not buy the bow and arrow that the tribal chief tried to sell me (even though it did look pretty cool).
Next came the Yaguas tribe, just up the river. A much smaller tribe, the Yaguas actually spoke a decent amount of spanish. Plus the adults all wore some kind of grass skirt or similar clothing, but this time the little boys were naked, which kinda freaked Scarlet out a little. As you can see here, I was again recruited into doing the Amazon two-step with the locals, in which the picture looks a lot funnier than I remember.
The Yaguas still use the dart gun shown here, and they allowed us to take target practice at a wooden bird mounted on a post in the middle of the courtyard. The Gran Jefe (that's what they called the chief, as a joke of course but with some seriousness) shot two darts and barely missed the target; I missed one by miles but the second was only off a few inches; Jim missed by a few inches both times. The dart gun was heavier than you might expect, but equally interesting is that to get enough force to blow the dart hard enough to stick into the wood required only a short burst of breath, nothing like the amount I expected.
They tried to get me to buy the dart gun, too, but I didn't think the FAA would allow it on the plane. At least the Yaguas' selling techniques were much more relaxed, and I liked the things they had put together more anyway.
That brought us to the next destination, an animal farm in the jungle where a curator takes care of several large or unusual animals and reptiles to show the public. When we arrived he was just showing off the three-toed sloth, which I can definitely conclude is among the least attractive of the mammals that I have ever seen before. There is nothing cute about a sloth whatsoever, and even its sort of permasmile isn't all that charming. Nonetheless, Scarlet felt compelled to grab the thing.
In order to not gross out too many people, I am leaving out the anaconda shots. For those who would like to have some kind of mental comparison, here's something to think about. The anacondas we saw at this farm are 5 meters long, about 16 ft. While they weren't terribly heavy, they were definitely thick and not at all something you want curling up with you at night. And, on top of it all - since they live in water, they smelled absolutely awful. This picture, on the other hand, is of a baby caiman, which is very closely related to the crocodile. The caiman can grow up to 3 meters long or more, and is nocturnal; it doesn't really look like this when it gets older. Pretty cool anyway, though.
Scarlet discovered that macaws really like to have the backs of their necks scratched, so several birds benefited from this discovery. To the best of my knowledge, they do not purr when you do that to them. They do, however, talk. But unlike American macaws, Peruvian ones speak spanish. So instead of polly saying Hello, the bird says things like Hola and Que Tal? That just cracked me up.
After the farm we went back to Iquitos, our tour through. But Juan, our guide, asked us if we would like to take a canoe ride down the Rio Nanay through the floating village of Belem. Belem is the southern end of Iquitos, and is extremely poor. Juan knew a guy who would paddle us out on the river for a while so we could see it, and so we did. We had to walk through a fairly seedy section of town first, which was muddy because of the morning's rain, but once on the canoe we could see immediately that it was worth it. And our best line came during this part of the trip. We were passing a house where a 15 year old boy was fishing. He sees Scarlet and says hello (this is all in spanish). Scarlet says, Hi, what are you fishing for? And without missing a beat, the kid looks at us and says, Fish!
I thought it was hilarious. So did Jim, Juan, and the guy paddling the boat. Scarlet was too embarrassed to say anything.
And that was it. We left for Lima the next morning and arrived back in Lima for a day or two. We arrived home too late to go to the beach again, so sunday was spent lounging around - as was monday, now that I think of it, but monday of course was my last day there. No more Peru. It was 80 degrees the morning I left Peru, and maybe 75 when I actually walked to the airplane. Miami wasn't much different, but when I landed in New York I was back to reality: 22 degrees, with the Wednesday high expected to be about 17. Fortunately I missed the 2-ft snowstorm that the east coast endured while I was gone, but that is little consolation when you're used to 80 and you get 20. And no more beautiful Lima sunsets.
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